Whilst many modern cars have driver assistance features, such as adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, the Highway Code states that motorists must stay alert at all times.
Recently, a Florida judge announced that Tesla could face trial over the Autopilot system in many of the company’s models, which has caused a number of injuries and deaths from owners thinking they did not need to pay attention to the road whilst the system was turned on.
Tesla has since issued an over the air update to more than two million cars that feature Autopilot which restricts use of the automatic steering function.
However, whilst driverless cars still have issues, Mark Harper noted that allowing them to be used in some settings could see fewer accidents on the roads.
He added: “It has a huge number of potential uses, the obvious one is 88 percent or so of road traffic collisions we see today are caused by driver error of some description.
“There is a real potential for this sort of technology to actually improve safety on the roads, not just for drivers, not just for passengers, but other vulnerable road users.”
Whilst driverless cars are limited in their use in the UK, other countries have allowed select companies to trial the vehicles on public roads.
In Los Angeles, California and Houston, Texas, members of the public can accept rides from ‘robotaxis’ owned by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors.
China has also allowed for some self-driving vehicles to be used under certain conditions, including their own autonomous taxi service in Shenzhen.
